DIY Update

I think our yard is far enough along now to share some "after" photos from our renovation.

Here's our new arbor bench,with cushions and flowering pink bower vine. I love how this turned out.











The ornamental pear tree is doing well, and its afternoon shadow falls across the front door. Hopefully by next summer it will provide some real shade. The ground cover under it is filling in and covering the mulch.








The mini lily of the nile plants are blooming nicely now, too.












The whole house fan has been operational for several weeks now. It's a great addition, and provides a nice cool breeze in the evenings and mornings, when it's cooler outside than inside.

 The louvers open in when the fan is on.

Momentous news

On Friday evening, my parents treated us to dinner to celebrate Stacey's upcoming birthday. He'll be in England on his actual day, which also happens to be Father's Day.

Violet very much enjoyed the dessert we shared around the table!

Prior to dinner, Stace and I let the girls in on a little something we'd been keeping secret: Cora would be joining Stace on his one-week trip to help build Nan and Pop's new kitchen.

Violet and I, meanwhile, would be celebrating "Mummy and Violet's Week of Fun," with lots of great activities planned including Disneyland, the circus, and a baseball game.

Both girls were pleased with our news; obviously Violet wanted to go to England too, and Cora wanted us to come along, but they were  understanding.

They were up early Saturday, Cora's first day of summer, and I found them on the couch like this. Love my readers!

On Saturday night, since they'd soon be apart for a week, they had a sleepover. We got the trundle bed out, but in the morning this is how they were sleeping.

Cora later told us that Violet had a nightmare about a spider, and Cora calmed her down by letting her climb in.

On Sunday, since we wouldn't be around for our typical evening service, we went to the early service at Real Life.

It marked the weekend the children move up into the next grade level in Sunday school, so Violet moved upstairs from the preschool classrooms, into the kindergarten room. She's close to Cora now, and they can sit together during the large group singing and lesson time.

After church, we went to Trader Joe's for some airplane snacks for Cora and Stace.

Then, it was home for a few hours of final preparations, and then the lunchtime trip to LAX.

Saying goodbye was tough!

But they were off... away on a daddy-daughter adventure I'm sure they won't ever forget.

School's Out For Summer!

Another school year has come to a close.

Cora finished second grade on Friday, and as a gift to her book-loving teacher, she wrote her a book. Cora worked on it for over a week, and had over a dozen hand-written pages when she began typing it into the computer.

It's called "The Dragon Prince," and it's a fairy tale about a dragon who steals the gold and has disguised himself as a prince.











For her age, it's a very well written story, with a twist at the end. Stace and I enjoyed helping her with it; it's printed and encased in a plastic cover.

Cora's school held a year-end assembly just after the start on Friday morning, to hand out various awards and bid adieu to staff members who aren't returning. Sadly, that included the principal, Mr. Rose, who has done a great job. We will miss him.

Dr. Porter's class played board games during the school day, though there was no formal class party. They're growing up, no parties for every occasion! After school, we all headed to the park for a picnic.

 Here we have Cora and Vi with Sam and Riley, and Violet, Vivian and Tyler Belle in front. Tyler won't be back next year either, sadly. With the addition of baby Camden, her family has moved to a bigger home outside of the school area.

 One of the highlights of the year-end picnic has to be the Kona Ice truck.

And now, on to summer!
Thanks to my friend Elaine for passing these photos along!

Soccer Team Party

Cora's soccer season came to an end Sunday, with another win. The Blue Sharks finished the season 7-2, a record to be proud of.

Cora did so well playing in goal - she wasn't the main goalkeeper, but she put in quite a few minutes, and was solid. In one game, she made a remarkable save, with the ball bouncing up and down off the cross bar and into her arms, to the cheers of everyone.

Coach Stace was so pleased with how much the players learned, as he drilled into them the ideas of controlling and passing the ball.








On Thursday, our normal practice day, we had our team party at a local pizza place. Twelve of the 13 players made it, and it was great hanging out with them and their families one last time. Cora (and we) are going to miss these guys!


Stace gave a little speech, and he and assistant coach Nelson handed out the trophies and a little laminated placard Stace made for each player.

It had a bit of info about the player, a team photo and an action shot my dad took over the last month or so.








Following the presentation, the team mom handed cards and gifts to Stace and Nelson - gift cards to Best Buy!

Several players' families also generously gave Stacey individual gifts and cards, with some lovely words about how much their players learned from him.

Wow! What an amazing first experience he had as a youth sports coach! You hear stories about things going poorly, but we had an amazing set of players and parents.















 The pizza place featured games that require quarters. I know this, because every five minutes, Violet was asking me or Stacey for a quarter. I went home and later found a half-dozen bouncy balls in my purse.

Cora had a fantastic experience, too, and was near tears this week thinking about saying goodbye to her teammates. They are all her friends, she was saying.

Hopefully we can see some of them again in the future, either on a team next spring or this summer if Stace runs some casual trainings at the park like he did last summer.

Miss Charity's Dilemma

Cora's class put on a Western-themed play this week, called "The Peril's of Greed ... or, Miss Charity's Dilemma."

The play featured student-made sets and was performed in the classroom. It wasn't on the scale of Wizard of Oz last year, but it was still a cute production the children worked hard to put on.

Cora's main part was in a commercial between scenes of the story, which centered on her friend Riley as Miss Charity.

Cora and Anthony came on to sell us their music, a new hit song called, "Oh My Darling Clementine." They sang the song several times, and brought on stage other students from the audience (other classes came in to watch) to hold up the signs with the words.

Cora, whose character was named Beanpole, sounded very good singing her part, and loved directing the students holding the signs.

After the middle of the three performances, the class enjoyed a lunch of chicken tenders, watermelon, corn, beans and cornbread muffins.

The parents signed up to bring the various items.







The week before, I went in with some parents to help make the construction paper sets. Even Violet got to help out, coloring in the door of the grocery store.

I helped with making the stable. Here, the girls are gluing strips of hay onto the loft window.

When Violet was done helping, she was a very good little sister, using her stamp activity pad quietly.

Tidbits

Violet had a playdate at Melanie's house, and the girls played with play-doh. Christina shared this photo with me, of Violet's creation of her name.











The girls have had fun with the produce from the blueberry bushes. The new bushes have been very productive, but since we bought them with the berries, I hope we have as good of luck next year.

Our rear neighbor has a plum tree that had some lovely looking red plums up above our side of the wall. Alas, our squirrel friends took care of anything within (or above) reach.









Violet crawled into our bed in the middle of the night, and poor Stace had an awful night's sleep as a result.

After I got up, I came in to find her stretched out like this. No wonder poor Daddy was uncomfortable! How can someone so little need so much room?

On one of our morning walks, Violet and I came upon a flock of turkey vultures in the wash.

Saturday suits and rollers

The Wedding is coming, and Stace is a groomsman.

Therefore, he needs a suit. Melanie found out about an awesome place downtown where you can buy a suit for less than the cost of renting one, so off we went Saturday after Violet's t-ball game.

Looking good, no? After a little hemming of the trousers, Stace'll look a million bucks for less than a hundred.











Since we were in L.A.'s garment district with Melanie, she had a few wedding things to find - lace for her veil and pearls. The girls had fun at the bead stores.

 After our shopping, we went to a cool, old restaurant called Cole's, that may have been the first to come up with the French Dip beef sandwich. (Philippe's not far away also stakes this claim.)

The atmosphere was great, with burgandy leather booths and a red tin ceiling. The company was was super cool, too.

 YUM. Violet's grilled cheese sandwich fed us all for days!

 When we got back to SClarita, my friend Christina was looking for help painting their new house. That sounded like fun, so off we went. The girls played and crafted, while Stace and I tackled Melanie's new bedroom.

Stace and I got a solid first coat of a soft pink on the walls. Melanie was very pleased.

Week in Review - with a Surprise!

Once upon a time, Stace and I loved to surprise each other with big experience-type gifts. I blindfolded him to take him to see U2; he one-upped me by planning a trip to Barcelona. (These things were much easier to accomplish pre-children!)

This past Mother's Day, Stace reinstituted the surprise fun, with my blindfolded trip to a picnic brunch in one of our favorite outdoor settings.

This week, I got him back pretty good.

He had no clue, but I got tickets for us to see Robert Plant at the Greek Theatre, and arranged the babysitting and even for Grandpa to take over for his assistant coaching duties at Violet's t-ball practice.

Tuesday evening, while we were all at practice, I told him it was time to go; we had an event we were leaving for. In the car on the way south, he managed to guess our destination, since he had heard Plant was coming to town. Darn!

Still, it was a great surprise, and a well-earned early birthday gift for my hard-working, handsome husband.

The show was brilliant, too. We love seeing Robert live, and this marked the fourth time we've seen him at the Greek, a lovely amphitheater tucked into the canyon and trees of Griffith Park.

 Thankfully, Stace got to sleep in a little bit Wednesday after our late date night. Violet had her kindergarten assessment Wednesday morning, and Stace had already arranged to go to work late so we could both take her.

Violet was very excited about her assessment, which helps the teaching staff place the children into classes. She did very, very well, getting every number right, every capital letter right and 25 of the 26 lower-case letters, plus every letter sound correct.

When Violet did so well, the teacher asked if she could read. We answered that she can read a bit, and the teacher wrote out the word "FAN," which Violet read without even sounding it out. She then named off a few of the sight words up on the wall of the kinder classroom.

Turn your volume up to its highest and you can (just barely) hear Violet naming off the letters.
























On Thursday, after nearly a week of no preschool, we had Violet's preschool friend Elena over for a playdate. The girls had a very nice time playing different games and creating art projects.